Carnegie Mellon making robotic snake

by Mark R

Nothing that I like more than robots, and we have reported on a lot of interesting ones.

This one is under development at Carnegie Mellon’s Biorobotics Lab, and it bears a resemblance to the Omnitread. That was a snake-like robot with treads on it like a train, designed to slip into small places.

This robot lacks the treads, but looks like it could creep into small places. In other words, it really is like a snake, and it can even climb trees. It is able to climb a tree with a specific trunk width of 1 meter off the ground. I have a video of it climbing a tree, and it looks kind of creepy.

Apparently, they want to make robots that can climb thicker and taller trees. This is, of course, there is a market for robots like this.

In addition to the Omnitread, this also reminds me of the Tentacle Robot that is under development by the U.S. Military.

I guess one day we will see a day when a building collapses, and these robot snakes will be all over the wreckage, searching for survivors. Man, that is just a weird image from a weird science-fiction movie. Still, I can’t help but think that robot snakes are just pretty cool.